Misano DTM: Di Resta wins crazy night race, Paffett out
Paul Di Resta won a chaotic first-ever DTM night race at Misano, as Gary Paffett lost most of his points lead after contact with Edoardo Mortara.
Paul Di Resta, Mercedes-AMG Team HWA, Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM
James Gasperotti / Motorsport Images
Di Resta started the weekend 29 points behind Paffett but took maximum points by claiming both pole position and victory, and is now just one adrift in the standings.
The Scotsman had a sluggish start from pole and his lead was threatened by both Mortara and Paffett, but he held on the outside line of Turn 1 and stayed ahead.
Mortara ran wide a corner latter, allowing Paffett to take second, the title rivals running in the top two positions in the early stages.
The duo changes tyres at the same time on lap seven, and Paffett narrowly managed to keep Mortara, who was on hotter tyres, at bay when he rejoined.
However, a lap later Paffett locked up his tyres at Turn 8 and had to take the left-hander on the outside line, only to be hit by Mortara regardless, as the Italian was busy defending from Philipp Eng and ran wide on his own.
Paffett retired on the spot and the safety car was out with Daniel Juncadella, Augusto Farfus - the two drivers yet to pit - sat ahead of Di Resta and Eng.
On the restart, Eng quickly gained two places as Juncadella ran wide and Di Resta fell behind the Austrian, but safety car was soon out again due to two separate incidents - one involving Audi teammates Rene Rast and Jamie Green, and another between Bruno Spengler and Lucas Auer.
It was Eng's turn to have a bad restart this time around and he was back behind Di Resta, only for the Scotsman to run wide at Turn 8, handing second place, which soon became the lead, to Eng.
Eng, who started 18th and was the first driver to pit while running 15th, looked comfortable initially as he built a 2.6s lead over Di Resta.
But with about 10 minutes left on the clock, Di Resta, followed by Mercedes stablemate Mortara, rapidly closed in on Eng.
Di Resta eventually made a move at Turn 9 with Mortara forcibly following through at the same corner, and putting pressure on the former F1 driver.
However, Mortara couldn't overtake and had to even defend from the charging Robin Frijns - the Dutchman running ninth after the second restart and then dropping as low as 12th before he began an impressive recovery.
Frijns had carved his way through the field and after an unsuccessful move on Mortara at Turn 8 on the final lap, he forced the Italian into a mistake at Carro and claimed second place, his first podium in the DTM.
Mortara had to settle for third followed by Audi duo Loic Duval and Nico Muller.
Pascal Wehrlein was sixth with Timo Glock becoming the top BMW in seventh, as Eng faded to eighth.
Marco Wittmann dropped to last place early on after being sent into a spin by Frijns, but recovered to ninth followed by Mike Rockenfeller.
Late-pitter Farfus was 11th, as Joel Eriksson, who had a drive-through penalty for pushing another car while running sixth, and BMW wildcard Alex Zanardi rounding out the order.
Juncadella retired with a car failure with five laps remaining.
Race results
Cla | Driver | Car | Laps | Gap | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Paul di Resta | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 32 | ||
2 | Robin Frijns | Audi RS5 DTM | 32 | 1.973 | |
3 | Edoardo Mortara | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 32 | 2.144 | |
4 | Loic Duval | Audi RS5 DTM | 32 | 2.931 | |
5 | Nico Müller | Audi RS5 DTM | 32 | 3.663 | |
6 | Pascal Wehrlein | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 32 | 8.826 | |
7 | Timo Glock | BMW M4 DTM | 32 | 13.624 | |
8 | Philipp Eng | BMW M4 DTM | 32 | 14.390 | |
9 | Marco Wittmann | BMW M4 DTM | 32 | 17.398 | |
10 | Mike Rockenfeller | Audi RS5 DTM | 32 | 21.447 | |
11 | Augusto Farfus | BMW M4 DTM | 32 | 31.483 | |
12 | Joel Eriksson | BMW M4 DTM | 32 | 44.200 | |
13 | Alessandro Zanardi | BMW M4 DTM | 32 | 1'14.633 | |
dnf | Daniel Juncadella | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 27 | 5 Laps | |
dnf | René Rast | Audi RS5 DTM | 14 | 18 Laps | |
dnf | Bruno Spengler | BMW M4 DTM | 12 | 20 Laps | |
dnf | Jamie Green | Audi RS5 DTM | 12 | 20 Laps | |
dnf | Lucas Auer | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 12 | 20 Laps | |
dnf | Gary Paffett | Mercedes-AMG C63 DTM | 7 | 25 Laps |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments